Today's comic pages have been outsourced to Wal-Mart's Sex Discrimination Department

Hagar the Horrible, 8/7/07

That’s right, women: Not getting that promotion your male co-workers got? Got fired when you complained about sexual harassment from your boss? Suck it up, because clearly you just haven’t figured out how to use your equal rights! Shit, you women have had equal rights since the Vikings! You never saw Attila the Hun get all weepy over some sexually loaded commentary at work, did you?

Oh, Attila was a man’s name back then? Well, uh. Whatever, you get the point.

So, hey, why not just go to the kitchen, pick up the nearest kitchen tool -- nothing sharp, of course -- and wave it around a bit. See? Doesn’t that make everything better? And while you’re there, can you please make Hagar the Horrible writer Chris Browne a sandwich? The man works hard all day; that’s really the least you can do.

And meanwhile, down the street at the Bumstead residence, a young boy is pointing at a grown woman’s ass and saying he “wants that stuff in (his) room.”

Blondie, 8/7/07

Sure you were talking about the dirt, Elmo. She is a dirty, dirty woman.

Permalink: 08:51 AM | Comments (0)

And I’ve just been hired as Giuliani’s foreign policy adviser, because I like foreign films and once spent the weekend in Canada

From a New York Times story yesterday about Rudy Giuliani and his wife, Judith:

But he described her as an effective fund-raiser and trusted sounding board for his policies, particularly on health care, because she holds a two-year nursing degree and once sold pharmaceuticals.

Permalink: 08:48 AM | Comments (0)

Reality tv: Hitting rock bottom, then digging

In a grave affront to basic intelligence, Mindset (a.k.a. Phil, my friend Kathryn's brother, and the Official Reality TV Star of HappyScrappy.com) was canned this week from SciFi Channel's "Who Wants to be a Superhero?" The contestants on the show had been captured by a villain called Bee Sting, who, in a move that would make Dr. Evil cringe, challenged them to a spelling bee -- except all words must be spelled with an extra e (bee-serker, say). Mindset doesn't play along, and spells his word correctly.

As an editor, I consider that admirable dedication to our language. But it also made sense for the show: Its challenges are often distractions from more noble pursuits, like when the contestants are told to fix their car but instead are rewarded for helping a nearby old lady pick up her groceries, so this spelling bee should have also been more than it appeared. As Phil says during his exit interview, he figured it was more heroic for a captured hero to stick by what's right, rather than kowtow to a captor's wacky demands. But Stan Lee doesn't see it that way, and kicked off Phil for being prideful.

It's especially curious because Stan, of all people, should know the power of words. The man's fortune has come from (or at least, was initiated in) the publishing industry. Come on, man. One letter means big changes in words. It makes Fantastic Four into fantastic flour. The X-Men are disposed-of boyfriends. Marvel is an ice cream company. Tell us, Stan: If you were kidnapped by Potato Man and forced to cater to his spelling whims, would this have been your largest claim to fame?:

I think not. Mindset, you're an inspiration to us all.

Permalink: 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

Table Scraps:

♣HIGH-FIVE, HUMANITY! We finally did it! We finally built a personal, flying saucer! Be sure to watch the video, and jam along to its music. And here's a related news story.

♣VIDEO DATING SERVICES: Full of winners.

♣POLITICALLY CONSERVATIVE CRUISES: same thing.

♣A NICE PIECE of outrage: A local columnist tries doing a fluff piece on a bridge, and the bridge's operator responds by firing an employee he talked to. So now he's writing a different, far better column.

♣WHEN YOU'RE CHALLENGED to draw 200 comics, no idea is a bad idea.

♣WHO NEEDS TO watch movies before reviewing them? Not my friend Zack. His great, new videos are the Wayne's World of movie-review shows, and they're here and here. (They're Quicktime videos, though, so they may take a few minutes to load.) And speaking of movies, this should run before every one of them.

♣IF YOU NEED some help at the self-checkout line -- and don't we all? -- then this might be of service to you.

♣CHECK OUT THE photo underneath this blog entry's title, "50 Year Storm fails to dampen Tahsis Spirit." Nothing but, uh, un-dampened spirits there, I tell you.

♣HOW TO COMBINE weddings and bicycles? Apparently, like this.

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 08:52 AM | Comments (0)

And now, some regularly scheduled self-promotion

The new issue of Boston magazine is on stands, featuring a whopping 320 pages of awesomeness, some of which are mine all mine. It's my first as editor of the City Journal section (although it isn't online in full, here's the section's opener), and I've got a fun, long piece about the war between two local "duck tour" companies, called, "Duck, Duck... Lawsuit!" I stumbled upon the fight before it became a legal battle, did most of the reporting before any papers were filed, and then watched anxiously as it went through the court system while our deadline fast approached. Another editor and I ended up having to stick around the office until 2 a.m. one time, making sure this thing was as up-to-date as possible. eXtreme jOurnalism, my friends.

Permalink: 08:54 AM | Comments (0)